Wheat Improvement in Northern Hills of India

Abstract

Wheat (Triticum spp.) is one of the important winter cereal crops of India. The Northern Hills Zone (NHZ) of India covers humid western Himalayan regions, which produces approximately two million tons of wheat with rather low productivity level of 1.75 t/ha. This low level of productivity is mainly due to difficulty in availability of improved varieties on one hand and occurrence of diseases that pose severe threat to wheat production on the other. In contrast, the prevalence of cool climate and comparatively longer crop season offer ample scope for raising the level of wheat yield in this region. Furthermore, this zone assumes great importance in management of rust in the country due to the fact that the hills are the foci of infection for wheat rusts. The Green Revolution bypassed these hills largely because of the lack of suitable varieties on one hand and poor seed multiplication of the available varieties on the other. As a result, indigenous land races are still under cultivation in these areas. Semi-dwarf varieties, however, made significant impact on increasing wheat production in the post-green revolution era and release of VL Gehun 616 in 1986 fulfilled the long-felt need for a suitable variety for early sown condition in the hills. Subsequently, wheat improvement work gained momentum and at present, research organizations of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the State Agricultural Universities based in the region are playing important role in breeding new varieties for the hills. These centers have deployed modern methods of breeding with special emphasis on transferring rust resistance. Additionally, they have developed and released more than 40 varieties including facultative wheat varieties that are suitable for dual purpose (green fodder-cum-grain) under limited irrigated condition. One of the prime contributions of these institutions has been the timely detection of new variants and identification of rust-resistant materials that have prevented major loss to wheat production during the last 35 years. Concerted efforts, being made by these institutions, will help not only in increasing the production and productivity of wheat in the NHZ of India but will also help in containing spread of wheat rusts in the plains of the country.